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Status: Both my tulpae can possess either hand and slowly make a fist, and some wrist movement. Lyra has also been able to slightly move other parts. With a great deal of leading and coaching on my part, Lyra can slowly type short words. We're currently taking a break from working on this to focus more on voice (her choice, not mine, though I really do want better voice).]

(8/27/2012 - Finally updating this... when I wrote it in May, possession was mostly theoretical and considered likely impossible; today all the cool tulpae on the IRC are doing it. I'd been adding new methods to the list, but now it's closer to a guide than an idea dump.)

Possession is letting your tulpa control your body. Switching is when a tulpa fully controls your body, and you are either imposed or live in the wonderland, like a tulpa. One note on switching: contrary to what seems obvious, you do not necessarily become your tulpa; you'll more likely have the same imaginary body you normally do in the wonderland, or whatever you like it to be. Both are temporary and usually require a lot of practice to make work well. This post acts as a mini-guide and provides a list of methods and ideas that may help you.

(Note: I sometimes use the pronoun "she" for the tulpa. I do this because "it" is generally insulting to a sentient being, and because I'm used to doing it with my first tulpa Lyra.)

So far when I do it, the body part being possessed feels like it's moving on its own. It's much like involuntary muscle movements like those random twitches that are common in deep relaxation. Here it's often either slow movements or a series of twitches that make up a single larger motion. During it, the part often tingles and then goes numb, similar to when a limb goes to sleep, though it feels somehow different. I also get tingles from a tulpa focusing on the physical sensations in the limb.

At first, movement will likely be slow, clumsy, twitchy and weak, but should improve with practice. There are two real barriers that must be overcome to make it work: you giving up control, and the tulpa taking it. Of these, the former appears to be the more difficult, for me at least. So far, what I do is moderately relax one or both hands, and give a tulpa permission to control them. Too much relaxation seems to make them heavy and more difficult for either of us to move. Too little relaxation and I'm more likely to remain in control myself, or seize back control automatically when they start to move.

Once you relax and let go, try not to focus on the body part you're trying to get your tulpa to possess. If you focus on it at first, you'll either force it still or expect it to move and move it yourself. If it starts to move on its own, try not to shift your focus to it or think about how weird it feels. Doing so will almost inevitably grab back control and either stop any motion or continue it yourself. This part has been particularly difficult for me, as part of my body moving without me causing it to is something that grabs my attention. Try to focus instead on anything else, possibly an engaging video or visualization. If possible focus on the tulpa, as this attention will encourage her and strengthen the connection to you.

Another huge point is patience, as with anything else tulpa. Getting things working well takes time. When any movement occurs, no matter how faint, tell your tulpa she's doing well. Try to take a positive view of any tiny result yourself, too. If you get frustrated, calm down or take a break. When frustrated, you won't be able to let go of your control as effectively, nor will you come off as very encouraging to your tulpa. Similarly, take a break if your tulpa becomes too frustrated. Getting this down will likely be difficult, and neither of you needs any more frustration than the process itself causes.

Three important distinctions to make between types of possession/switching:

Whole body or only parts? Parts would be preferable if one has some reservations about trying this, or to let both the tulpa and host do stuff at once (like, let the tulpa control one hand). Obviously switching can't be anything other than the whole body. Both of these work, and most people start with hands/arms only and work up to fully body if desired. With full body, the face and voice are often still controlled by the host, but can be tulpa-controlled with practice.

Who must be complicit to initiate or end possession? Obviously, few would be willing to try something where the tulpa could grab control at any time or has to willingly hand control back to the host. At least at first, all possession and switching requires consent of both parties, and the host can VERY easily seize back control at any moment. With loads of practice, control can be seized by the tulpa, as with a few like glitchthe3rd, but most tulpae are very reasonable and at least wait for permission.

Where does the host go during it? For possession, you're in your head watching as your body moves. For switching, you go away to your wonderland or your tulpa imposes you the same as you do her.

Direct: Control of individual muscles, or groups of muscles. It's the lowest level of control, and seems to lead to generally slow and clumsy movement. This is mostly what Lyra appears to do so far. I can't seem to do it myself. (Most tulpae used to doing possession advise against thinking about the individual muscle movements as it's complex.)

Limb: This is basic use of muscle memory, willing a limb to move in a given way. For instance, bending a finger a certain way. This gives smoother, quicker movement than direct control. Lyra can do this some, and obviously I can too.

Full muscle memory: Think of the action and the actual limb motions involved happen almost completely automatically. This happens most with very familiar activities. I think a direction and walk in it; I think of a word and type it. It takes conscious effort to pay attention to exactly how my legs or fingers are moving. Lyra hasn't gotten to this point at all yet.

I mention the above because there seem to be different ways that a tulpa can insert her intentions into your motor system. I have encountered two real ways so far: (Again, conjecture and from my own experience)

Direct: As above. This would be closer to the actual muscles and appears to require more time to get good at, yet some seem to have mastered this. I theorize that the tulpa develops similar processing of the movements to what you do, but generally having access to the same muscle memories. That is, they don't have to learn to walk "from scratch" like you did, but still starts out slow and jerky. (This is what my tulpae do currently.)

Intentions: The tulpa makes you feel a desire to make a certain movement, and you do. At the start it feels like just moving limbs yourself, but doing what your tulpa wants. With practice it becomes more automatic. I theorize that this shares more of your motor processing, as it appears to be a question of just getting used to taking these intentions and acting on them without thinking. As such, it should yield faster results. (Lyra seemed to be trying this at first, but I explained that I would rather not involve my own conscious in the process. I felt it would likely raise issues down the road if we want to do things like switching, possession while I sleep, or typing different things with each hand.)

(Or do some of both, using the intentions kind to help her get access to your muscle memory...?)

Here are some ideas I've had or heard on how to achieve possession. Ultimately most of these boil down to methods for convincing the brain that the tulpa is in control now. No matter which method you try, entering a trance state or relaxing and letting go seem to help most people.

These are short descriptions intentionally. Everybody who does them does it slightly differently. Take the idea and fill in details as feels best to you, or try permutations until you hit on something that works.

Just give permission, either with or without relaxing the body part(s) to be controlled (this is the most straightforward and what I'm doing mostly)

Have your tulpa put her hands into yours, like putting on a glove (commonly called "meat glove" or "meat suit"; as claimed by Cyclone; Glitch reports this works for full-body as well; seems to be common)

Imagine the tulpa's body part to be something like a ghost possessing your body part (variation on the glove thing)

Just "pushing buttons in your brain" (TOG's Clair suggested this as a first step - similar to "just give permission")

Relax and visualize draining energy from your arm (or other body part), leaving it "empty", and let the tulpa figure out a way to control it (Semi-Nomadic)

Let the tulpa do all the work, apart from allowing it to happen; you might feel a "pressure" or their "presence" shifting to different parts of your body (done by the wind listens before the tulpa was able to speak)

Tulpa's movements directly control yours; mirror analogy, you are the reflection; an android tulpa may see it as "uplinking" their movements to yours (tulpacouple)

Imagine sensory/motor streams and have your tulpa connect to them (itsblah and WreckingFist; I did this initially)

Game controller or something similar to control you (Glitch did this with Elise)

Inverse puppeting: tulpa instructs, you do. Eventually you should start to do it automatically. Then move on to control via thoughts rather than words. (This appears to be a different form of possession, and may lead to smooth movement faster; see "intentions" in the list above)

Here's a few ideas on how to do switching. These are all much more experimental or untested, as only 3 people currently in the community have done it successfully. I've marked those people's methods by name; the others haven't resulted in any successful switching yet.

OBE and then have the tulpa enter your body instead of you, as suggested in this thread.

Do full body possession, then have the tulpa impose you. This places your sense of presence in an imagined form outside of your body. Awareness of the body's sensations fades after somewhere around an hour of this, faster with practice. This does require a very strong tulpa. (Atasco)

Do full body possession, then disconnect your physical senses. (Heaven only knows how one would do this last bit.) (ClintRockfoot)

Drain self into a form in the wonderland, then have tulpa inhabit body. I suspect this requires a good deal of practice and likely previous experience with dissociating from the body, since it's basically inducing an OBE first. (Fuliam)

Similar to body part possession but do it with your personality instead.

Possession during sleep? (Paxafarus)

This, this, and this. (Note: these are written for "multiples", who get something like unimposed tulpae without tulpaforcing; hence the different terminology.)

Tesseract's method, which is basically putting the subconscious into a state that allows it (feels like the mind "unraveling" or "coming apart at the seams"), then the host and tulpa each push their minds into the other's space. (WARNING: Tesseract reports bad side effects using this method, such as temporary loss of short term memory and memory gaps. However her situation is rather unique and the side effects -- as well as the method itself -- may be specific to her.)

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The switching bodies aspect is the one that inreigues me. It would allow us to see through the eyes of the tulpa, to experience things as a tulpa would. Not to mention it allows the creator to take on a completely new form, possibly even one that would be impossible in the real world.

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I most certainly will do it when my tulpa is finished / close to finished. She doesn't speak yet, but I told her earlier that I'd start working on possession shortly after I give her access to my thoughts and memories. And I'll do that once she's fluent and we develop a close relationship.

The all-out body switch fascinates me... I'd be really interested to experience what being the tulpa is like.

Also note that this is something that can be proven true (if you believe whoever tests it...) but not false. If someone tries and fails, they might just be doing it wrong.

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Personally, when my tulpa is done, I will only work on the body-switching aspect. To avoid the potential problems of two minds for two minds for one body. Once this progresses (or refises to progress) I will probably try other styles. the body swap seems the hardest, so getting the hardest out of the way should make the others easier, right?

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I most certainly will do it when my tulpa is finished / close to finished. She doesn't speak yet, but I told her earlier that I'd start working on possession shortly after I give her access to my thoughts and memories. And I'll do that once she's fluent and we develop a close relationship.

The all-out body switch fascinates me... I'd be really interested to experience what being the tulpa is like.

Also note that this is something that can be proven true (if you believe whoever tests it...) but not false. If someone tries and fails, they might just be doing it wrong.

It's one of those things which you can prove to yourself, but not to others. Not unlike tulpae, although it's very curious what the underlying neurological effects of tulpae are.

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But if your tulpa isn't a douchenozzle, it should be fine. This is something that requires immense trust. In fact, this seems like something that could potentially strengthen the bond between creator and tulpa.